A radio presenter who claimed she was replaced because of her Indian accent has lost her claim for race discrimination.
Soma Sarkar worked as a presenter on a daily show at Lyca Radio, which broadcasts music in London for British Asians.
She was never given any form of written contract and received £12.50 an hour, filling in a timesheet as a freelance employee and receiving earnings without tax and national insurance deductions.
In January 2021, almost two years after she began working for the station, the company appointed a new chief executive, Rajinder Baddhan.
He said he had listened to Sarkar’s output on the station and decided it was “dreary”.
Baddhan told the tribunal that Lyca needed to change its image and he had developed a repositioning strategy for the station, including renaming one of the sister stations Lyca Gold to play more retro music.
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This meant he wanted new presenters on Lyca Radio, Sarkar’s main station, with “more energy and a higher public profile” than those that were there when he joined.
In January 2021 Sarkar was told she was to stop presenting her weekday show and that her last show would be 5 February 2021. Three other presenters lost their jobs as part of the shake-up. She claimed she had been replaced by someone with an English accent.
She met with the HR team at Lyca shortly after, and this was treated by the company as a grievance. It responded to her that her contract had not been terminated, but that “she had been removed from her slot” while there was a review of operations at the station.
The company said it had treated the other presenters in exactly the same way, and rejected what it felt to be accusations of race and/or religious belief discrimination.
She appealed, telling the tribunal: “I have always maintained that the cessation was on grounds which were strictly not based on performance, as it is understood that the presenter who replaced me used to do radio shows either on very late nights or on late weekends but definitely not on prime evening like me.”
She accused the CEO of nepotism, claiming that the new presenter was “related to the CEO somehow, irrespective of race or ethnicity of the person concerned… Indeed it can be construed as a clear case of discrimination on grounds of an attempt to take care of one’s own and known.”
In establishing whether Sarkar was an employee or a freelancer, the tribunal found no evidence of control – there was no written contract and no documents were produced to show any details of working agreements.
This meant the tribunal had no jurisdiction to consider her claims because she was a freelancer – so she lost claims of unfair dismissal, failure to pay notice pay and holiday pay, and direct and indirect race discrimination.
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